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The gearbox casing/bellhousing/suspension arrangment seems to point to at least one of two things:
1--Audi are going for light weight to move ballast to the front of the car to get the front tires to work, or
2--Audi have adopted a "quick change" gearbox casing that can be removed from the car without the need to take the suspension with it to allow for quick changing of transmission internals/differential for maintanance/repair, or to tune gear ratios.
Any possibility of that scinerio? Pruett from Speed reported on this shortly after the R18 was launched, but, at least until Mike and Sam get their photos up and sorted, we might not have any big time answers unless someone catches Audi in the act of working on the gearbox.
Also, for the Monza test, it was reported that the R18's ran 1:28s without the chicane on the front straight.
And one thing that really strikes me about the R18 is that compared to the R10 and R15 especially, that the R18 at Paul Ricard and Monza seems to be using a lot more curbing than those cars ever did.
Whatever Audi is doing there, it seems to work at least on a clean track, but maybe not one that's dirty?
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